Historical landmark
The Real Mary King's Close
Buried seventeenth-century underground street of plague-era homes and shops, hidden beneath a city building.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to The Real Mary King's Close in Edinburgh follows George Rae, the plague doctor hired by the town council in June 1645 after his predecessor caught the disease from a patient and died. Wearing a leather mask packed with dried herbs, Rae was the only doctor willing to descend into a close under quarantine, its sick families marked by white flags at their windows. The council offered him a fortune to take the job, several times a laborer's yearly wage, expecting he would never live to collect it.
This audio guide was created using AI.